Tuesday, October 30, 2012

A while back a friend of mine, Patrick Larkin, was a high school principal. (He has since moved up in the world to Asst. Superintendent ) He was regularly blogging for his staff and at the end of his weekly posts of updates, things to remember and such he had a list of things that had him thinking. It might have been a video, blog post, article, something, that had piqued his interest and he wanted to share.

It was such a great idea, I decided to steal borrow the idea. I've been meaning to do it for a while now but today is the day I will start. My goal is to write about and share a few things each week that have me pondering, or are pushing the boundaries of my thinking. These items, hopefully, will come from a variety of places and people and cover a variety of topics.

So, week 1. Here we go!

Leadership Books-I was driving home yesterday thinking about Leadership. I have been in my current leadership role just a few months. It was a huge transition for me and I am still trying to piece together what leadership means and how I can be a better leader for my staff. I wanted to see what others were thinking and reading so naturally I took to Twitter and got a lot of great suggestions for books about leadership. I Storified the results which you can follow here.

20/20 Vision For Technology-This was a blog post that I just happen to come across while looking at some other things but what Nick has written here is so true. And he asks some tough questions we all must consider in this age of rapidly changing technology. What is our vision and how will we keep up? Definitely something we all need to think about.

The First Follower-Playing on the leadership theme still, this video below, is hands down, one of my favorite TED Talks. We have been doing a lot of PD for our Administrators in my district and getting them to think about being a lone nut leader. But what has me thinking is the First Follower. As leaders, how to we ensure we are followable? How can I be more followable and what are the qualities that makes someone want to follow?

Theories For The Digital Age: The Digital Natives Discourse-This post from one of my favorite bloggers, Steve Wheeler, caught my attention. You need to read Steve's post to get the full feeling for what he is saying. I have been in many a discussion about whether or not kids are Digital Natives. I know that I could hand my daughter at 18 months my iPad and she could unlock it, get to her letter game and play. No one taught her how to do that. (Video evidence) Had she watched me? Sure maybe a few times. But the fact that the more and more she interacts with technology she is able to do more and more things I didn't think she could, nor was she shown, is leading me down a path to believe that kids are wired differently now, and therefore, are learning different, but we are treating them all the same as we have for years.

A while back a friend of mine, Patrick Larkin, was a high school principal. (He has since moved up in the world to Asst. Superintendent ) He was regularly blogging for his staff and at the end of his weekly posts of updates, things to remember and such he had a list of things that had him thinking. It might have been a video, blog post, article, something, that had piqued his interest and he wanted to share.

It was such a great idea, I decided to steal borrow the idea. I've been meaning to do it for a while now but today is the day I will start. My goal is to write about and share a few things each week that have me pondering, or are pushing the boundaries of my thinking. These items, hopefully, will come from a variety of places and people and cover a variety of topics.

So, week 1. Here we go!

Leadership Books-I was driving home yesterday thinking about Leadership. I have been in my current leadership role just a few months. It was a huge transition for me and I am still trying to piece together what leadership means and how I can be a better leader for my staff. I wanted to see what others were thinking and reading so naturally I took to Twitter and got a lot of great suggestions for books about leadership. I Storified the results which you can follow here.

20/20 Vision For Technology-This was a blog post that I just happen to come across while looking at some other things but what Nick has written here is so true. And he asks some tough questions we all must consider in this age of rapidly changing technology. What is our vision and how will we keep up? Definitely something we all need to think about.

The First Follower-Playing on the leadership theme still, this video below, is hands down, one of my favorite TED Talks. We have been doing a lot of PD for our Administrators in my district and getting them to think about being a lone nut leader. But what has me thinking is the First Follower. As leaders, how to we ensure we are followable? How can I be more followable and what are the qualities that makes someone want to follow?

Theories For The Digital Age: The Digital Natives Discourse-This post from one of my favorite bloggers, Steve Wheeler, caught my attention. You need to read Steve's post to get the full feeling for what he is saying. I have been in many a discussion about whether or not kids are Digital Natives. I know that I could hand my daughter at 18 months my iPad and she could unlock it, get to her letter game and play. No one taught her how to do that. (Video evidence) Had she watched me? Sure maybe a few times. But the fact that the more and more she interacts with technology she is able to do more and more things I didn't think she could, nor was she shown, is leading me down a path to believe that kids are wired differently now, and therefore, are learning different, but we are treating them all the same as we have for years.

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